One Last Kiss
by GreyEyesGlaringAtShonda
Summary: The last one had been broken, plagued, cursed by my realism. We needed a new kiss, a different one, to be the light through our storm.


One Last Kiss 

By greyeyedgirl

Summary: The last one had been broken, plagued, cursed by my realism. We needed a new kiss, a different one, to be the light through our storm.

A/n: A continuation from a scene in AotC. This is part of a scene from Episode 2…only there are some, ah, differences. :D It's the scene where Anakin expresses his feelings for Padme. The beginning dialogue is the same, only it's the unedited version from the original transcript. (I found it online. I don't remember the site, but if you google "Star Wars Transcripts" it should come up on the first page. If you can't find them, email me, I can just send them to you).

-o-

Even my mother and Sola saw it. We were there for less than a day, and it seemed so obvious to them.

There was a silent movement in the corner, and I jumped, turning to see. Anakin sent me a small smile, which I returned, making room for him on the seat. I felt my breath catch as his arm brushed against me as he seated himself, he turned to look at me, and his smile was gone.

"May I tell you something?"

I froze. He was looking at me intently, and I had to avoid my gaze so I wouldn't be mesmerized by the glowing blue spheres.

"I…don't know."

Anakin let out a small, almost frustrated laugh. "Then how can I tell you?"

I turned to look at him, forcing myself not to give in to the way he was looking at me. I heard the edgy tone to my voice as I turned back away, staring into the flames in front of me. "Maybe you should use your Jedi intuition."

Anakin let out a hoarse sigh, his eyes still watching me intently. I kept my gaze firmly on the fireplace. "It doesn't work around you. My mind is always a muddle... I can only think of you."

I felt part of my mind crumble, blinking slowly as I kept my rigid position. _Why must he keep saying things like that? Why can't he **understand?** _

My voice came out soft, and I shuddered inwardly. I was supposed to sound firm, not hopeful!

"Anakin…don't."

He acted like he didn't even _hear_ me! He looked down at my hand for a moment, as if dreaming of caressing it. I turned to look at him for a moment, before his soft, emotion-filled voice danced its way to my ears.

"From the moment I met you," he said, looking at me earnestly, "All those years ago… A day hasn't gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm close to you again…" I heard my breath stop, I tried to push the swirling thoughts in my mind back down into a corner. "I'm in agony!" He took a deep breath. "The closer I get to you, the worse it gets."

He paused, looking at me. "The thought of not being with you makes my stomach turn over – my mouth goes dry. I feel dizzy. I can't breathe!"

Anakin…don't.

"I'm…_haunted,_ by thekiss you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar."

Why did he have to bring up that kiss? I'd known it was a mistake from the moment our lips touched, but the second I had seen his face so close to mine, felt my eyes drift from the piercing blue to his cute little nose, I…

Anakin interrupted my thoughts. "You are in my very soul, tormenting me."

I'm not doing it on purpose! I can't…Anakin, don't… 

"What can I do? I will do anything you ask..."

My mind couldn't think, all I could focus on was the everlasting fire in front of my eyes, like the everlasting feelings inside of us if I didn't put a stop to it.

Anakin opened his mouth to speak. _Anakin, don't!_ I could feel myself softening, I could barely keep my mind clenched on the thought, '_We can't. It would not work. We can't. Stop it, Padmé! Anakin…don't.'_

"If you are suffering as much as I am, _please_ tell me."

The sound of his voice sent my heart into a tailspin. The last bit of the wall I built up seemed to be shattering, leaving me a thousand percent vulnerable, terrified, and feeling almost naked, much too exposed. I forced my voice to say the only thing I could think, squeezing my eyes shut for half of a second as if to squeeze out all the bad thoughts and stomp on them.

"...I can't. We can't. It's just not possible."

There was a twinge of relief in Anakin's voice, as if I had just confirmed something. "Anything's possible. Padmé, please listen..."

_He's no naïve. Why can't he just stop? Why does this have to---_ I could not keep doing this, I could not cry. A wind of fury erupted in me, and I stood up, turning to him angrily.

"No, you listen! We live in a real world. Come back to it. You're studying to become a Jedi…" I looked down into his face and my voice softened unconsciously. "I'm a Senator. If you follow your thoughts through to conclusion, they will take us to a place we cannot go..." _'Please…tell me.' _I felt my heart melt, as I looked down at him, finishing as I took a soft breath, the breath of life. "Regardless of the waywe feel about each other."

The look in Anakin's eye was like a stab and an embrace at the same time. "Then you do feel something! There's an extraordinary connection between us. You can't deny that."

"Anakin, we can't!" I almost screamed it at him, as he stood up to stand in front of me.

"Of course we can," he murmured. "_Anything_ is possibly, Padmé. Our love makes the impossible real."

He took another step toward me, I commanded my brain to take a step back, but my legs didn't move. He was looking down at me again exactly as he had been looking at me since our reencounter, his eyes were glowing like they had on the terrace, and his lips looked soft and pillowy, the gentlest I'd ever seen.

"We—can't—" My whisper was barely audible as he bent his head towards mine. It was not impulsive, as it had been before. He kept his eyes open, his lips only centimeters from mine, so when he spoke they brushed against my top lip.

"Please Padmé…just one kiss. No one has to ever know. I need one last kiss, one last one." His eyes were searching my face fervently, I could feel his burning breath against my nose. "I need to remember what you feel like. And if you feel nothing, if you truly think you can resist this, I will try as hard as I can to stop. I do not know if I can succeed, but for you I will try Padmé, because I will do whatever it takes to make you happy." 

My eyes drifted upwards from his lips to his nose to his eyes, heartbroken to see how full they looked. Full of tears, full of heartbreak, full of love. My poor Ani. He had so much sense, but he was willing to throw it out the window, throw _everything_, for me. It wasn't that he did not realize the consequences, as I had first imagined, he just held me so much higher above them.

He moved, barely a millimeter, but it was enough for our noses to make contact and our eyes to link. His lips met mine with a gentle kind of force, I felt our lips curling and melting into one another's as his arms wrapped around me, I felt without thinking my hands go up and start running through his hair.

"Ani…" I tried to murmur, but he silenced me with his kiss. His arms tightened around me in a tight embrace, his right hand feeling the side of my face while his left caressed my back. He led me slowly to the couch again, our lips never separating. He gently leaned me back on the furniture, climbing slowly on top of me, his lips still not leaving mine. I felt my heart screaming from the inside of my chest, a bright fog that was more like a mist covering my brain and focusing only on how soft his hair felt.

He was a perfect gentleman, his hands never traveled places they shouldn't, his sole thought seemed to be concentrating on pushing his lips against mine, his tongue tasting mine. It was only when he let out a soft moan that I snapped back to my senses, gasping, but for some reason not breaking contact. This was our last kiss. The only real kiss we would ever be able to have.

By the time he pulled away, my lips felt chapped and his eyes seem a little puffy, though if it was from his exhaustion or his trying not to cry was a mystery.

"That was wonderful."

I closed my eyes, feeling his body pushing against me, his eyes searching over me, his hand still entwined in my hair.

"I love you, Padmé."

"I know, Ani," I murmured.

I opened my eyes to see him watching me, and I wondered briefly if it had been a mistake before I decided it wasn't. We needed that. A real kiss, so our love would never truly die.

"Anakin- we can not—do this-" The words were nearly impossible to say, in the process of half an hour he had taken my concrete wall and melted it with the gentlest touch from his lips.

"I know." He looked at me, his eyes showing his heartbreak, but also his awareness of my decision. "That was our last kiss. Our real kiss." He looked as if he was struggling to breathe, he was still leaning firmly against my body and I realized I could not complain. "We cannot do this. Yes. It would destroy us."

"It would destroy everything," I agreed, trying to hide my own tears. He nodded slightly, his face now far away so that no contact was made. "Yes," he agreed. "Everything."

-FIN-

July 29, 2006 1:32 AM.


End file.
